My dear friend

My dear friend and teacher,

for too long a time I was shy to call you friend and too arogant to call you teacher. You were both to me.
Today, and woe to me, only today, I realized, that worldly matters and vicissitudes of life also applied to you. Somehow, despite all the nisyonot that Hashem sent you, you seemed to be untouchable, far from being a regular, normative and worldly human being. As if you went unaffected by all the troubles. Now I know, that it was just because of the way you were dealing with things, that made you so in my eyes, not the nature of those things. You went through difficult times, you suffered a lot, but never showed more than a drop of the whole sea of it. For me, you were the most vivid and happy person, welcoming everyone and everything with a great and firm emuna and simcha. The only tears of sorrow that I have seen, were when your brother, z"l,  passed away. The rest were tears of pure happiness.
Very childish from me was to think, that you would be always here. That IT cannot happen. But it did. My friend and my teacher, today Hashem recollected your soul.
I am writing this, because today I learned a big thing. I met a person, who walked before Hashem and was perfect (Gen 17,1). May we always be watchful enough to notice  that on time.

Chaya Shifra bat Hudye Hadassa, may your soul be bound up in the bond of life.

Motherhood, Robinhood

I am writing this with full conscious that following lines are absolutely unnecessary. It is not meant as a personal confession. Neither as a theoretical bla-bla. It is here to fill the empty space on this page and save many souls from free time spent properly.
Some would call it procrastination. Mothers should either hang the laundry or write their dissertation. Possibly both. Better simultaneously.
Before you become a mother, you observe from a save distance Facebook talks of your friends about their kids, fevers, teeth, diapers, swaddling and who knows what. In pregnancy, you read a lot about childcare, and are sure that with all this knowledge you are still not prepared. During the first days after the birth, still in the hospital, you are quite relaxed, have your morning coffee, eat properly and often, shower two times daily, are very self-confident and sure you take care of your baby the best way you can (80 percent of the care is done by the nurses, far, far away from your room).
When you are about to leave the hospital, you unfortunately forget to take all these things with you back home, nurses inclusive. Instead, you take absolutely unrealistic flyer with some after-birth exercises, release letter signed by a doctor you have never met and a feeling that two hundred years passed since arriving at the hospital.
Landed. Your home seems like after returning from a very long vacation. You have to find your place here again.
I wanted to write about how all the negative feelings are normal, how you should not resist any help, how you should be patient with getting some routine back, how normal it is that you don't have time to eat properly, take rest etc. But these words would be redundant, banal, garbage.
So instead I shall say: Many expectations will be fulfilled. Many will not. Be ready to get diverse opinions on what is bothering you. All that is confusing and irritating. You probably will come to two or three conclusions at the end of your postpartum period, namely:
1. Everything that I have read and heard, did not help much.
2. Everything that I have read and heard, was right.
3. Everything that I have read and heard, contradicted each other, and is the very proof of the fact, that nobody really know how it works.

I should really rather work on my dissertation.

Getting back

Getting back to anything needs to be done step by step. If you want to get back to writing your blog, first find it on the internet (if you are lucky and not breastfeeding, you might remember its name). Second, choose one topic to write about. You might think, that your every little thought deserves a special topic. It is absolutely not true (I mean, except for my little thoughts).
Do you have a topic? Now you might make first mistake looking for the right title. You realize how much intertwined your theme is with your other little thoughts and quite confused give up the title altogether. Good thing about it - it is a sign of complex thinking.
Then, start happily. Do not forget to bring your drink, because if you do, you might have to leave the blog and go get it, and never come back.
Did you say to the world everything you wanted? Now, post it on facebook, or send a link to your friends, if you want at least 100 people know about it. Do not forget to send it to your Mom, just to make sure at least one person reads it. If you want more readers, read it once more.

In the end you have to give up hopes to be read, to be original, to be THE blogger.
And in the end of the end, you make obvious conclusion: I am writing this for myself.